


Lucretia Receives Some Surprising News

by finx



Series: It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Loses A kKsHKssShKsskK [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, I love lucretia a lot you guys, big spoilers not little ones, for some reason that manifests as a desire to write really really angsty fic for her, idk what else to tag this as, it's just lucretia being sad, spoilers through the end of Stolen Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-08 14:39:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12866643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finx/pseuds/finx
Summary: When Killian comes back from Phandalin with the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, she doesn't come back alone. When Lucretia finds out who she's brought with her... well, it's a good thing she's had so many years to hone her poker face.





	Lucretia Receives Some Surprising News

“Madam Director,” Killian said, standing at loose attention. She was grimly serious, the way she only was when things had gone very badly indeed. Lucretia, who had felt the pulse of energy in her staff when one of the relics carved its mark on the world, wasn’t surprised.

“Before you begin,” Lucretia said, “you should know that Carey is fine. We’re not sure yet why she reacted so badly to Magic Brian’s spell, but she’s awake and seems to be in excellent health. It appears Brian modified the spell to prevent the horrible nightmares that usually plague the victim, and this may have caused the irregularities that hurt Carey.”

Killian took a deep, relieved breath. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I—Can I see her?”

Lucretia nodded. “Of course.” Killian turned to go out the door and, no doubt, run straight to the hospital dome at top speed. “I will just need a quick report,” Lucretia reminded her with a sigh.

“Right,” Killian said sheepishly. “Sorry, Madam Director.” She stepped back toward the desk and drew herself up again, locking her hands behind her back. “I have recovered the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet.”

Lucretia couldn’t help a shocked intake of breath. It had been so long since she’d even _found_ one of the relics, much less—“Magic Brian is dead,” Killian continued, her voice harsh with forced professionalism. “As is Spider Bryan. And Phandalin was lost. The whole city is… gone.”

Lucretia could see it in her mind’s eye, a circle of black glass like a hole in the landscape. It had been nine years since the Gauntlet had last scarred the world – nine years since Lucretia had watched Lup grow wearier with each passing day, with each city that was lost to the Gauntlet’s fire. She hoped that wherever Lup was, she wouldn’t hear about Phandalin. She hoped that Lup was still alive somewhere, that Fisher was protecting her from the memory of all the lives her Gauntlet had taken – but barring that, she hoped that Lup would at least be spared the knowledge of this last devastation. That was Lucretia’s burden to bear now.

Her bones ached with the weight of it. She felt too old, twenty years and a century too old, to carry so many more deaths on her shoulders. Still, she had made her choice, and she would live with it. Lucretia took a deep breath and straightened in her chair. There were only five relics left, now. The Bureau was doing its job, and soon she’d be able to save the world.

She opened her mouth to congratulate Killian, but Killian wasn’t finished. “I didn’t recover the Gauntlet alone,” she said, still stiffly formal. “I was aided by three adventurers who happened to be in Wave-Echo Cave for unrelated reasons. One of them was actually able to withstand the relic’s thrall, apparently without difficulty. I’ve taken the liberty of bringing them up to the base. I think we should recruit them as reclaimers.”

Lucretia blinked. “You found someone who can resist the relic?” She’d thought—well, she’d set up as rigorous a program as she could to test and train her reclaimers to resist the Light’s temptation, but she’d started to think that it was impossible. That she’d have to go through with her backup plan, no matter how it would put her family in danger. No matter how much it would hurt her.

“His name is Taako,” Killian said. “His companions are called Magnus Burnsides and Merle Highchurch.”

It was a good thing Lucretia was already sitting down. Even so, it took every inch of the composure she’d honed over a century to avoid screeching in shock. She leaned back, very gingerly, in her seat, reaching for her staff almost unconsciously and drawing it close, gripping it with all her strength. Killian was talking about how the boys had defeated Magic Brian, arguing for why the Bureau should hire them. Lucretia tried to listen, but it was all she could do not to start crying, or maybe laughing, or maybe both.

“Yes,” she interrupted. Killian stopped halfway through recounting their random encounter with some slavers, how the boys hadn’t hesitated to stop and rescue an imprisoned orc child – gods, of course they hadn’t, even Taako with his carefully honed detachment would never let that sort of thing stand. “Yes,” she said, “we’ll hire them, we can– we can set up a quick initiation test, make sure they—” she fought to suppress a wild laugh— “make sure they fight well as a team. Go and… go ahead and send them down to the voidfish, they must be tripping over their own feet by now if they’ve been up here this long. Then come back here and tell me everything.”

Killian blinked back her surprise at how quickly Lucretia had been convinced, and nodded smartly. “Right away, Director.”

When Killian was gone, Lucretia went through the heavy door behind her desk that led into her private rooms. There were twelve pedestals in the corridor beyond, arrayed in a circle, with twelve colored orbs on them to represent the twelve planes. There was a complex order to press them in to disable the trap, one that only a member of the IPRE crew would know, which would send a special alert straight to Lucretia’s stone of farspeech. The only other way to disarm it was to walk to the center of the circle and tap the Bulwark Staff on the floor, sending a pulse of energy into each of the twelve orbs.

Lucretia hurried down the long hall and through the second door at the end of it, then went straight for the trick bookshelf at the back of her office and pulled out the stack of journals from the Starblaster’s voyage. She’d hesitated to give these to Fisher’s baby for so long. If she fed them to the voidfish, the last evidence of what her family had done and who they’d been to each other would be gone. If she fed them to the voidfish and then failed, if she died before the relics were all found, then their whole lives would just be… gone.

She didn’t hesitate now. She didn’t have time to hesitate. She carried the journals over to the baby voidfish’s tank, counting hurriedly to be sure she’d grabbed all of them. “Hey little one,” she cooed, “time for dinner. I hope you’re hungry, because I need you to eat this up real fucking fast.”  
She dumped the journals in, one by one so as not to crush the voidfish, who gobbled each one up eagerly. It sang each time it did, a happy little trill of melody. Lucretia didn’t sing back, too preoccupied with making sure she’d gotten all the journals. The voidfish sang louder, insistently. “Okay, okay,” Lucretia said, and hummed a few distracted notes. The voidfish echoed her, doing a little spin in its tank.

“Come on come on come on,” Lucretia muttered. The boys were probably in the elevator down to Fisher’s chamber by now. She had a few minutes still, but the anxiety pounded in her chest anyway. If she was too slow, if the boys remembered and then forgot all over again… She had no idea what that would do to them. She’d already all but destroyed Davenport. She couldn’t do that to any more of her family, she couldn’t.

The baby voidfish ate up the last of the journals and swam in a quick figure-eight, chiming delightedly. Lucretia sank to the floor, heavy with relief, and leaned her forehead against the smooth glass of the tank. “Good voidfish,” she murmured, “good job, thank you for being quick like I asked, thank you for—for keeping my family—”

 _Safe._ She couldn’t say it. Lucretia closed her eyes against the voidfish’s glow and allowed herself, for just a few minutes, to fall apart. Alone in her private quarters, where no one could see her, Lucretia cried for all that she had lost, and all that she had taken.


End file.
